


Solaris

by tuuli



Category: Solaris, Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Gen, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-19
Updated: 2013-01-19
Packaged: 2017-11-26 02:08:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/645375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuuli/pseuds/tuuli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seto Kaiba is going to check just what is going on at a space station in which Kaiba Corp. has invested much money. What he finds forces him to come in grips with a certain painful event of his past - if it doesn't drive him crazy first, that is.<br/>(This is an older fic I posted on ff.net years ago. I'm uploading it now here all in one go. )</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So… this is kind of a crossover between Yugioh and a Russian movie called Solaris (originally a book by Stanislav Lem). Don't worry if you've never heard of the latter one, you don't have to know anything about it to read this. Though the fic does contain some **spoilers** for the movie if you're going to watch it… The main idea behind the fic is the same, but the story's quite different from the movie in other ways. After all, Seto and Kris (the character from the movie whose role Seto's "playing") are worlds apart in nature, so they wouldn't react in the same way to everything.
> 
>  **Name note:** I think it comes clear in the fic, but just to avoid confusion… Bakura refers to Yami no Bakura, both Ishtar and Malik are used for Malik, and both Mutou and Yami for Yami no Yuugi, depending on who's talking. This is AU, so there is not this 'yami/hikari' thing in this fic.

A dull bang echoed in the empty corridor, telling him that the airlock's door had closed behind him. Shooting a sharp glance around he noted with distaste the mess that prevailed in the corridor he had entered. The feeling grew even stronger as he realized that there really was no one there to receive him.

With an angry shrug he started to walk down the corridor, all the time making mental notes of the burnout lamps, the broken junk lying all around on the floor, and the dust that covered everything.

He shook his head in disgust. _This is what they have used my money for? I hope for their sake that they've been doing better job with their research than taking care of the station._ Of course, there were currently only three people inhabiting this station, but the place was rather small and it shouldn't have been too difficult to keep it in order.

As he walked on a small window caught his attention, and he stopped to take a peek out. For the most part the view was that of dark space, a few stars glistening here and there, but if he looked from as far left as he could, he managed to see a little piece of a huge, bluish disk with a few white, cloudlike things hovering on its surface.

Solaris. The uninhabited alien world orbiting a small star far away from his own solar system. Its entire surface was covered by some liquid – something else than water, that was all that was known about it. No life had been detected there, although some nutcases were suggesting that the sea itself was some kind of an alien life form. He didn't believe that. How would it be possible for a life form like _that_ to be born in the first place?

The planet had guarded its secrets annoyingly well. When it had been discovered, he had been the first to finance its research, the first to donate for the space station that was built on its orbit… besides of his well-hidden fascination of this far-away world, his instincts had also clearly said that this would pay off in the end. By now, the Project Solaris was as good as his own.

The only problem being that as time flew by, absolutely no news came from the space station. At first he had tried to be patient, but by now things were getting ridiculous. If he was going to continue spending his money on this project, he would also have to get some results.

 _Mokuba would have loved coming here,_ an uninvited whisper penetrated his angry thoughts as he eyed the planet through the window. For a moment he thought he saw his brother's mirror image on the window, as the boy pushed his face into the glass, eyes shining with excitement. Shoulders tightening he turned away from the view and continued his way.

After countless empty rooms and long dusty corridors he finally found a door that had a nametag on it. 'M. Ishtar', he read. Finally. He knocked sharply on the door. These people really owed him some explanations.

As no one answered him, he knocked again, harder. "Ishtar-san? Are you there? I…"

A loud crash from inside cut him off and made him wince a little. _I wonder if there is anything_ not _broken in this station anymore…_

He was just about to bang the door again, when it finally was opened. A blond, messy head took a peek outside, eyes a little confused as they stopped on him. For a moment they stood in silence.

"Ishtar-san?" he finally said, annoyed. "I'm Seto Kaiba. Didn't you get my message?"

The other blinked. "Oh… umm, yes, sure, we did… I…" he threw a nervous glance over his shoulder into the room, and quickly stepped into the corridor, closing the door behind himself. "We just didn't except you yet."

Kaiba snorted. "For your information, if I send someone a message saying 'I am coming there', that means that I indeed _am_ coming there – immediately, not next year. What is going on here?"

"Many a thing," the other replied with a small shrug. "You wouldn't believe even half of them, I'm sure."

"Really? Tell me something I can believe then. Where are Mutou and Bakura?"

The nervousness returned to Ishtar's expression. "Bakura's in his lab, I think. He's always there these days… and as for Mutou… I take it you haven't heard, then…"

Kaiba sighed with exasperation. "Heard what?"

"He… killed himself last week."

Silence. Kaiba blinked once, slowly. Ishtar shrugged, a gesture clearly saying 'don't ask me why, but that's what happened'.

"Why?" Kaiba asked, not getting the message. "He's not the kind of man to commit suicide. What are you…"

Ishtar raised his hands, cutting him off. "I'm not lying. Just a moment…" he went back to his room, closing the door behind him before Kaiba could follow him. A series of loud crashes came from the inside, accompanied by mumbled cursing. After a moment he stepped out of the room, closing the door again. "He left this for you," he said, throwing a videotape to Kaiba. "Maybe it explains something. Maybe not."

Kaiba glanced at the tape in his hand and looked then suspiciously at the closed door. Ishtar stood in the front of it, solidly, and after a while he shrugged. "Where can I watch this?"

"Just pick a room," Ishtar said with a careless wave. "They all have video players." He turned to enter the room again, but Kaiba stopped him.

"I think we need to talk more after I have watched this," he said quietly. "And I want to meet Bakura too."

"Sure… let's do that in the morning, okay? I'm sure that you're tired after the travel."

Kaiba nodded in agreement and started to walk toward the direction Ishtar had waved.

"One more thing…" he heard Ishtar's quiet voice from behind, and stopped.

"What?"

"If you hear something… or… see something… someone else than me or Bakura… don't do anything. Don't attack them."

Kaiba frowned. "What do you mean? Who else is here?" he asked, but Ishtar had already withdrawn into his room.

For a moment Kaiba stood in the corridor staring at the shut door with a frown, but continued then his way. He wanted to watch the tape.

...

It hadn't taken him long to find a suitable room. A bed, a desk for his laptop, a chair by it, and, most importantly, a television and a video player. The first thing he did was to put the tape into the recorder and sit on the chair to watch it.

A familiar figure appeared on the screen, sitting by a desk in a room that was quite similar to his.

"Hello, old friend," came the voice, making him bite his lip. "Or… should I say 'old rival' to make you feel more comfortable?" the man on screen continued with a small smirk. "As it is, it seems that you are the one who won our race… that should make you happy, right?"

There was a moment's silence. "Or maybe not," the man muttered then quietly. "Damn… I've been thinking about this long, and I still don't know what to say…" His expression had suddenly lost all the smugness. "I'm sure that others have already told you what happened, so I won't get into that."

He fell silent again, staring thoughtfully somewhere past the camera. "Things are… quite weird here, and I'm afraid you wouldn't believe me even if I told you about them," he finally continued, and Kaiba snorted in annoyance. _I wish everyone would stop telling me that…_

"I know you want answers," Yami continued, "as you always do, but I can't give you them. There are no answers, only choices… All I can do is to give you a warning, though I'm afraid you're too stubborn to listen." He was smirking again. "As always. After all, when have you _ever_ listened to me?"

Silence took over again, and this time it felt awkward. Yami dropped his gaze to his hands and stared at them for a moment. As he raised his eyes again, his expression was for the first time completely serious.

" _Try_ to listen to me this time, would you? Even though I know that your first reaction will be a scornful snort… I know what happened last spring, and I know you don't want to talk about it. Even to think about it. But… if I am not mistaken, you will soon have to. At that time, listen to your heart." Grave eyes met Kaiba's stiff expression from the screen. "I know you have one, even if you try to hide it. When things start to proceed, trust your feelings, not your reason. Don't go for the… 'scientific solution'."

" _Are you soon finished?"_ a quiet voice came from the background, making both Yami and Kaiba start. Yami glanced nervously over his shoulder, making a hushing sound. As he turned to look back to the camera, his expression was hard to read, but there was something pained in his eyes.

Leaning back on his chair Kaiba forced his tensed body to relax, and rewound the tape a little. " _Are you soon finished?"_ came the voice again, and it wasn't Ishtar's. He had never met Bakura, but he was sure this couldn't be his voice either, it was too young. This time he let the tape play forward, and met Yami's pained gaze thoughtfully.

"I don't think there is anything else to be said," Yami said quietly. "I'm not sure if this entire recording has any point, but… good luck to you, my friend." He stood up suddenly, stepped out of the picture, and the screen turned to black.

Kaiba stared at the television thoughtfully, trying to figure out what was going on. Nothing made sense… he had watched the tape in the hopes of finding some reasons behind Yami's… act, but it had left him even more confused. There had been no answers, only questions…

With an irritated move he clicked the remote control and rewound the tape to watch it again. " _Hello, old friend…_ " Staring at the screen through slit eyes he tried to see or hear something he had missed last time, but there was nothing. Only the same nonsense about 'listening to his heart' as before…

There was a quiet click behind him, and with a start he turned around. The door to his room was open and a small boy stood in the doorway. For a brief moment he stared into sad violet eyes, then the boy turned on his heels and ran quickly away.

It took him a moment to get over his shock, but as he did, he jumped up and ran to the corridor. There was no one there, and as he listened carefully he heard nothing, just the quiet humming of the air conditioners.

A little shaken – more so than he cared to admit – he withdrew back into the room and closed the door behind him. That boy… he had looked just like Yami, but he had been smaller. Younger. As the voice on the tape… His eyes darted to the television, and he made a move towards it as if to go to watch the tape again, but stopped suddenly.

 _I am tired,_ he thought closing his eyes. _Tired and not thinking clearly. And probably hallucinating, as well. Maybe it's the space…? Better to go to sleep…_

He shut the television, took a quick shower, and changed into his pajamas. He was just about to go to sleep, but turned then to look suspiciously at the door. Ishtar's words echoed in his mind, ' _if you see something… someone else than me or Bakura…'_ Something was going on here. There probably was someone else on the station than the three of them. And who knows, maybe that someone was responsible of Yami's death…

He locked the door and just in case pushed the desk in the front of it. Before going to bed he took his pistol from his bags and placed it beside his pillow. You could never be too careful.

...

He woke up with a start, and stared at the ceiling in confusion for a moment before recalling where he was. His heart was still beating fast, probably because of an already forgotten dream, or – whatever it was that had woken him up. Yawning, he glanced at the alarm clock, and turned over closing his eyes. He could still sleep an hour or so…

"Niisama?"

The quiet voice made his eyes snap back open and heart skip one beat.

"Niisama? Are you awake?"

Grasping for his gun he bolted up in the bed. His eyes searched frantically the dim room before stopping at a small figure that was sitting in the chair opposite to the bed. For a brief moment his gaze darted to the door – the table was still in the front of it – before returning to the boy and his unnervingly familiar black mob of hair.

By now, the boy had stood up and was watching him with a grin.

"Morning, niisama. Sleepyhead… how late did you work if I'm awake before you?"

The boy took a step toward him, and everything happened very fast. He panicked and pulled the trigger, the bullet hit the boy in the forehead and the impact made the little body fly backwards. It hit the chair and fell down leaning against it in a half-sitting position.

Shaking – _what did I do!_ – Kaiba lowered the gun and stared at the body with wide eyes. It didn't disappear… it just kept on lying there, blood flowing slowly from the wound. He closed his eyes, tightly, and reached for the light. It would _have_ to disappear… it couldn't be real. A hallucination. That's all. A hal…

He looked toward the chair again, and the body was still there. Except that – now it was moving. Eyes blinking, it was trying to rise up, wiping blood from its face with another hand, but always it fell back down.

Something snapped in his mind. Jumping to his knees on the bed he pulled the trigger again and again and again and again, until the empty gun only clicked in his hand.

Lying on the floor, the body was again unmoving. He stared at it, panting heavily, when a knock from the door made him to start violently.

"Kaiba-san?" Ishtar's voice. "Kaiba-san, is everything okay? I… think I heard shooting…"

For a moment he sat quietly on his knees on the bed, trying to regain his composure, before he slowly got up and walked to the door, avoiding looking toward the chair. He pushed the table aside and opened the door, facing Ishtar's questioning look.

A short while they stared at each other in silence, but then Ishtar lowered his eyes to the gun that was still in his hand. Raising his eyebrows a little, he said, "I think I told you not to attack them."

Kaiba didn't answer anything, and after a moment he continued, "Who is it?"

Kaiba stared at him quietly for a moment, and stated then flatly, "My brother."

Ishtar nodded. "Come here," he said, pulling Kaiba into the corridor and closing the door behind him. "Now, listen. Shooting at it won't help. You…"

"What is it?" Kaiba interrupted him sharply, still trying to get over the shock. "What the hell is that thing in my room?"

"It…" Ishtar looked a little uncomfortable. "It is a bit complicated…"

" _Niisama…_ " came a quiet voice from the other side of the door.

"I'm sure it is." Grasping his collar Kaiba pushed him against the opposite wall. "Now," he continued, glaring straight at the other's eyes. "My brother is _dead_. What is that thing?"

"Hey, take it easy! It's not like this were my fault." He wrenched himself free of Kaiba's grip and took a step aside, with an expression that was too close to smug to Kaiba's liking. "Blame your precious Solaris. I don't know how it does this, but somehow, as we sleep, it produces exact copies of people extracted from our memories. I don't know how, and I don't know why – I just know that it happens, and you can't do anything about it. They can't be killed – their bodies heal in a moment – and you can't get rid of them either. They just reappear during the night…"

"Niisama!" Someone was banging the door from the other side.

"Copies." The word was very flat. " _Copies._ "

"Yeah." Ishtar shrugged. "I think you'd better open the door before he breaks it." The banging and screams were echoing in the corridor.

Kaiba stood still for a moment and pulled then the door open with angry movement. The boy inside dashed forward and collapsed at his feet, crying senselessly and trying to hug his knees. Full of rage at the alien planet that dared to play with his mind, he shook the boy easily off and marched into the room. "Shut up, I'm going to sleep," he muttered angrily, and slammed the door shut with a shaking hand, missing Ishtar's quiet voice.

"I think it might have something to do with conscience…"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "There are no answers, only choices." A quote from the movie…and someone has said that it may "ironically be the answer to the film and all of its many questions." Maybe. All I know that Solaris is one of the most confusing movies I've seen… "Something to do with conscience" is also from the movie.


	2. Chapter 2

As the morning came it found Seto Kaiba sitting by his laptop, staring blankly at its screen. The screen was full of text, but he couldn't make himself read it through. He was certain that nothing he had written during the past hours made any sense.

After the… incident he had tried to go back to sleep, but always when he closed his eyes uninvited images invaded his mind. He was sure he wouldn't be able to sleep without having nightmares. Nightmares about a speeding steel gray car, about a screaming woman and crying children… and about a closed door behind which dust collected on furniture and toys.

He had decided that it'd be best to start working instead, but he just couldn't concentrate. He had turned on the computer, started typing, and now he didn't even remember what he had written.

Without even looking at the text he saved the document and closed it. He would read it through sometimes later. A short while he sat there staring at the empty screen, when a quiet knock came from the door. With a start he opened the document again – just in case – and glanced at the door.

"Yes?"

The door opened and a black head peeked inside. Stiffening a little he turned back to his computer.

"Get out," he grunted. "I'm busy."

"As always," the boy muttered, but didn't obey. Instead, he stepped in and shut the door behind him. "I…" he started to say, but paused, hovering uncertainly by the door.

Kaiba stared at the document, pretending to be reading it, while his mind was overworking. This situation was impossible. Unexplored space seas or no, something like this _couldn't_ possibly happen. Even if it were possible for something to form out of thin air, or out of energy, rather, to have at least some kind of scientific plausibility to this all, there was no way something could read his mind and use his memories as a construction plan. No. Not possible.

Rationally thinking… the only ones on this space station were Ishtar and Bakura. Ishtar had seen Mokuba at least once, and they probably had photographs. That didn't explain how they would have been able to create this… this _copy_ , but at least this was beginning to sound more sensible than the stories about 'extracting people from memories'. The same applied to that Yami look-alike… Suddenly he remembered the noises he had heard from Ishtar's room. Most probably it had been this copy, and the reason for Ishtar not letting him in was that he didn't want him too see their creation yet… Now, the only question was what those two were trying to accomplish with this.

"…niisama?"

With a start he realized that the boy had been talking for some time.

"Don't call me that," he grunted, shut down the computer, stood up, and stormed out of the room, determinedly ignoring the boy who followed him quietly. If he remembered floor plan correctly the laboratories weren't that far away.

Time to go to have a chat with Bakura.

...

Very soon he, with the boy still tailing after him, arrived at the laboratory. The doors were locked. Quiet, muffled voices reached his ears from the other side of the door, but he couldn't make out what was being said. As he banged the door, loudly, the voices fell abruptly silent.

"Who's there?" a voice he didn't recognize shouted after a moment.

"Seto Kaiba," he answered, holding back an annoyed sigh. "Bakura-san? I need to speak with you."

"Just a moment…"

Silence continued for a little while, then the door cracked open. A wild mop of white hair appeared in the doorway. The eyes under the mop were angry.

"What is it? I'm busy."

"Aren't we all." Kaiba pushed the door open and entered the room. The laboratory was white and clean – during his short stay he hadn't yet seen a room that was in such a good condition on this station. It was also empty. He turned to frown at Bakura, who frowned back at him.

"Who were you speaking with?" he asked, and Bakura's frown deepened.

"I haven't been speaking with anyone."

"I heard…"

Bakura shrugged. "So you're hearing things, huh? Aren't the first one on this station." He stomped past Kaiba and shot an angry glare at him midway to a little desk on the other side of the laboratory. "I'm busy, as I said. I'd like to continue what I was doing, if you don't mind."

Kaiba eyed the clean tables. "It doesn't really look like you were doing anything."

Another glare. "I was just about to begin."

The glare reflected from Kaiba's eyes back to Bakura. "To do what?"

"None of your business."

"No. It is, quite literally, my business, given that you get your funding from me."

For a moment glares whirled around the room, before Bakura's gaze suddenly fell on the black-haired boy who hesitantly hovered by the door.

"Well, well, well. What do we have here?"

Kaiba's voice was just as sweet as his was musing. "Why, I don't know, doctor Bakura. Why don't you tell me?"

Bakura, once again, glared at him for a moment, then turned around with an amused shrug and walked to his desk. "If you don't know, Kaiba- _san_ , you are more stupid than I thought." He sat on his chair and spun around to face Kaiba again. "Why don't you just call it a ghost from the past…"

"Maybe because I don't believe in ghosts," Kaiba answered, making his way to another chair on the other side of the desk and sitting down. "I would like to hear your version of what is going on around here."

"My version?" Bakura leaned backwards on his chair. "What's wrong with Malik's? Or that friend of yours who went totally crazy?"

"Let's just say that I'd like to get a third opinion," Kaiba answered quietly, crossing his fingers.

"Well… simply put – or as simply as it can be put – during the night, Solaris radiates certain kind of rays that penetrate the station and the minds of those who are sleeping there. I am not yet exactly sure how this happens, not to talk about why, but…"

"If you are going to tell me how it makes copies from our memories, you can spare your breath," Kaiba cut him off. "I've heard that from Ishtar."

Bakura eyed him with a lazy catlike expression, and Kaiba got an annoying feeling that he was amused. As he didn't say anything, Kaiba continued after a while, "Why would I believe you? A copy, yes, that it surely is, but something extracted from my memories? This is reality, not a Star Trek episode."

Bakura shrugged. "Whether you believe it or not isn't my problem."

As they continued their debate, neither of them noticed how the boy who had been standing still by the door turned away and left the room. He walked quietly down the corridors, aimlessly, staring at the floor.

_A copy._

_It._

After talking with Malik during the night he had felt like he could deal with this, like there hadn't even been that much to be dealt with anyway, but...

_A copy._

_It._

Even though he knew that, in a way, it was true, it still hurt to hear him say it. Even though he knew that he really wasn't who he thought he was…

"Hi."

The soft voice startled him and his eyes snapped quickly up from the floor. A small boy was sitting on a windowsill, leaning against the glass and eying him sadly. The glass was all but invisible behind him, and it looked as if he were leaning against the dark space, as if there was nothing between him and stars.

"I know. It's hard to face it, isn't it?" the boy said quietly, and he blinked.

"What…?"

The boy jumped down from the windowsill. "I'm… Yuugi," he said, with a small hesitant pause. "What's your name?"

He was quiet for a moment. "I guess you can call me Mokuba," he said finally, and Yuugi nodded.

"Come. Let's walk together." Yuugi started to walk down the corridor, and after hesitating for a moment Mokuba followed him.

"I don't think I will be here for long anymore," Yuugi was saying. "I just wanted to… see if I could do anything for you."

"Me?" Mokuba asked, confused, and Yuugi shrugged.

"Well, for anyone who'd pop up here after Kaiba's coming, to be exact," he said. "I knew someone would come."

They walked a few steps in silence. A thousand questions were raced in Mokuba's mind, but none of them was coherent enough to be put into words. After a while he finally blurted out, "I just don't know what I should do!"

Yuugi eyed him sympathetically. "That's exactly about what I wanted to speak with you."

...

Later that day Kaiba was again sitting by his softly humming laptop, but he wasn't facing any greater success with his work than earlier. He had gotten some research results from Bakura – from the time this space station still was doing some serious research – and he had been trying to go through them, but his mind wasn't cooperating.

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't stop remembering.

There, in front of the faintly glowing screen, hung a pale face, eyes open and staring, tiniest bit of blood on the upper lip… shouts echoed in the air, faint and indistinct, as if coming from far away, at times shadows ran past him, and somebody, somebody was trying to tell him something, but…

He blinked. Straightened his back. Read the diary notes.

_The planet is gigantic, almost of the size of Jupiter. Its atmosphere is very thin but it is still possible to see something like clouds over it sometimes. There are no…_

He remembered the door. The locked door that hadn't been opened for months. The room behind it. And the quiet corridor, his steps muffled as he walks briskly by the door, not looking at it…

 _God_. He wiped his forehead and realized to his astonishment that it was covered with cold sweat. _I hope I'm not getting sick_.

That would certainly be a very bad timing. Very bad. He hadn't been sick since… since…

Since the time he had caught cold on one rainy day, just a minor cold, and still Mokuba had insisted he should take at least a day off from work… and he had gone anyway and come home even sicker. And Mokuba had taken him to bed and taken care of him…

He rose up in a sudden movement, tumbled a little and caught the desk's edge for support. For a moment he stood still by his fallen chair, staring at the floor, straightened then slowly and glanced at his watch. Only 5 pm. Bakura had suggested he'd join them for dinner at seven. He could take a little nap before that. He obviously wasn't getting anything done, and anyway, if he really was getting sick resting might be a good idea. In the back of his mind he heard Mokuba's voice telling him this – _stop being stubborn niisama. You need to rest or you'll get even worse_ – and he shook his head.

Yes. Rest was definitely a good idea. He walked to his bed and lay down, casting one glance at the door. He had not locked it. He considered getting up and doing that, but didn't feel like it. They surely had master keys anyway, it would be pointless. Besides, locking the door hadn't helped last time either…

His eyes wandered to the side. There, on his night table, was his gun. He had avoided looking at it since he had laid it there, after that… incident. He reached for it, trying to remember if he had reloaded it or not, but let his hand fall down before he touched it.

Whatever. He turned his back to the gun, closed his eyes, and tried to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

The dinner was a quiet one.

Kaiba ate his food bit by bit, in small morsels, slowly and systematically cleaning up his plate of the admittedly quite delicious meal someone had whipped up from canned foods. Surprisingly delicious. He suspected that Malik was behind it. He just couldn't imagine that Bakura, who was just attacking his stew as if he'd still have to kill it before eating it, would have been able to conjure up something like this.

Malik was the one who also tried to keep up conversation, but his attempts were repelled by Kaiba's snorts and Bakura's smirks. After a while he too gave up, and they finished eating in silence.

Malik wiped his mouth with a napkin – while Bakura quite pointedly wiped his mouth on his sleeve – and sighed. "Well… how about a glass of something? Some liquor or brandy? Let's move to the library for that. It's a good place to talk."

"Best idea in ages," Bakura muttered and got up. "The drink part, that is."

In the library Bakura poured whisky for Malik and Kaiba, and sat then down with the bottle. "So." He took a drink from the bottle and sunk in his chair. "What did you want to talk about? The weather?"

"Shut up," Malik muttered. "You of all should know this is serious." He turned to look at Kaiba. "I know what you're thinking – well, you haven't made your thoughts any secret anyway, but…" He sipped his drink. "We do not have anything to do with this. If you don't believe our theory of where these … people come from, feel free to present your own. But we do not have anything to do with it."

Kaiba leaned back in his chair and thought.

"You should be familiar with the resources we have here," Malik continued. "Do you really think we would be able to do something like this? To… clone people here, on a space station run by two people, when the best laboratories in the world can't do it?"

"The fact they don't do it doesn't quite mean they couldn't if they wanted to," Kaiba stated and laid his glass on the table. "But… I get your point. Unless you have some equipment here I am not familiar with…"

"You are quite welcome to check our equipment, if that would convince you," Malik muttered. He stared at his drink for a moment. "You could, of course, try to talk with that look-alike of your brother. He might know something, or at least, as time goes by, with right questions, he might come to know, if you get what I mean."

Kaiba frowned. "Not quit…" he started to say, but Bakura cut him off.

"That's what Mutou did. And then went and emptied a bottle of pills. Just so you know what the risks are in talking too much with people who shouldn't exist." He took another big gulp from the bottle.

Malik sighed and shook his head. "Bakura told me he gave you his notes." He got up. "I guess I might as well give you mine. Just a moment, I'll go to get them." He emptied his glass and walked out of the room, leaving Kaiba staring at his drink that he hadn't even tasted yet. He raised the glass to his lips, grimaced at its smell, and did not drink. He did not enjoy whisky.

Bakura lay sprawled in his chair, head leaning back, staring at the ceiling. Every now and then he raised the bottle and took a small sip of it. He said nothing, which was fine for Kaiba. He did not like this weird man – in fact, he enjoyed his company even less than the whisky.

Time passed. An old clock ticked quietly on the wall, a weird thing to have on a space station, Kaiba thought. He watched the clock face and its ornate numbers, and thought that it most likely belonged to Yami. Or… had belonged. A strange, uneasy feeling entered his stomach. It was still hard for him to think of Yami in past tense – in fact, he had not thought much about Yami in any way since watching the video tape. Now he wondered why… in the end it seemed to him that if he could figure out just what had happened to Yami, why he had done what he did and exactly what he was babbling about on that video, maybe then he would understand what was going on in this space station. He frowned at the clock and at himself, annoyed as he realized he had unconsciously been avoiding thinking about this.

The minute hand stirred. Bakura sighed loudly in his chair. Kaiba dropped his gaze back to his drink, shook it gently in his hand as minutes stretched by.

"What the hell." Bakura stood up suddenly. "I'll go to see what's taking him so long."

Kaiba placed his untouched drink on the table and got quickly on his feet too. "I'll come with you."

They walked briskly, footsteps echoing in the empty corridors. The station wasn't too big, and it had not been hard for someone with a mind like Kaiba's to memorize the floor plan. He was glad of that – he did not like the idea of walking in strange places in even stranger company and not knowing exactly where they were going.

He heard Bakura curse softly when Malik's door came into view. The white haired man started suddenly to run. It took Kaiba a moment to realize the cause of his agitation – then he saw that the door was open. He hurried after Bakura who already had disappeared into the room.

The room was, slightly put, a mess. It was clear that Malik was not an orderly person – clothes and papers were lying here and there all across the floor and furniture. But that was not all; two chairs had fallen, someone had clearly knocked down a pile of books from the table, and… Malik himself was lying sprawled on the floor. Bakura crouched down beside him and with a quick touch to his throat said, "He's alive."

"Well, that's a consolation," Kaiba muttered as he took the scene in. "What the hell has happened here?"

Bakura shook his head. "I'm not entirely sure. But I've got a feeling we've got something dangerous lose here."

"Really now." Kaiba bent down to examine Malik, who didn't yet show any signs of waking up. "Yes, I'd imagine that's the case, unless he somehow managed to hit himself on the head. Are you really telling me you've no idea what – or who – could have done this?"

Bakura scooped his unconscious colleague into his arms and carried him to the bedroom. "He never told me," he grunted as he placed Malik on the bed. "I did know something was going on – it started about one week before you arrived. One morning he came late to the lab, and had a cut lip and seemed quite disorientated. He kept his room locked after that… I asked him once if he was going nuts like Mutou, and he just shook his head and muttered something about having been there and done that years ago."

"And you did not deem it important enough to investigate?"

"I thought he'd tell me if he thought I should know," Bakura replied with shrug. "I guessed that he too had a visitor, but… those things are kind of personal. I don't like people nosing into my affairs – so I keep my nose out of other's affairs too. Unless they happen to interest me.

"I guess I should have been interested about this," he added after a while.

"Apparently." Kaiba was quiet for a while. "So, how is he?" he asked then.

Bakura glared at him. "Do I look like a doctor to you?"

Kaiba ignored him and eyed the bump in Malik's head with a frown. "That looks like a nasty hit… I wouldn't be surprised if he's got a concussion, at the least." He looked over his shoulder as he got no reply and noted with annoyance that Bakura had left the room. After a while he heard water running in the toilet, then Bakura returned with a plastic cup in his hand.

He walked wordlessly to the bed, then threw the water from the cup on Malik's face. Nothing happened. Kaiba looked at him with arched eyebrows.

He shrugged. "Worth trying. You got any other ideas?"

"Yes." Kaiba stood up. "We'd better catch this disturbance we've got here before it does further damage." He looked around in the room. "Any clues here for what we're facing?"

They examined the two rooms that made up Malik's apartment but found nothing. Kaiba picked up some papers from the floor, looked at them with a frown and threw them then away.

"So…" he said, turning to Bakura. "Mokuba came for me, some weird kid to Yami, a maniac to Ishtar… don't you have a 'visitor', as you called them?"

Bakura stiffened visibly. "None of you business."

"I take that as a yes," Kaiba muttered. "So, who is it in your case?"

Bakura glared at him. "What part of 'these things are kind of personal' you did not get?" he asked slowly, and as Kaiba saw the look on his face, he decided to drop the subject. For now.

"Nnnh…"

A quiet groan came from the bedroom. As they returned there, they saw Malik trying to sit up on the bed, and failing quite miserably.

"Are you okay?" Bakura asked him, coming to stand by the bed. Malik tried to shot a glare at him, but failed in that too.

After a few attempts he managed to whisper, "Have been better."

"Who is it?" Bakura asked. Malik looked at them with a troubled expression and said nothing. Bakura gave an impatient sigh. "We need to know. How dangerous is he? Or she?"

"He," Malik muttered after a while. "And he's dangerous. Very."

"Who is he?" Kaiba repeated Bakura's question.

Malik started to shook his head, but the little movement made him to wince in pain and he closed his eyes for a moment.

"Who's he?" he then muttered. "Not someone I'd have wanted you to meet… He's… well, simply put, he's me."

"What?" That came out of Bakura and Kaiba simultaneously.

"It's… all about one… problem I had once, years ago… I… thought it was past now, but…" He breathed heavily and fell silent. "You know, I really don't want to talk 'bout that. Not now, anyway."

His voice sounded weak, and Kaiba nodded. "So, we've got a problem. How do you propose we solve it? You're saying there's no way to get rid of these people?"

"Yeah. I've tried. I managed once to lure him enter one of our small space shuttles and sent it off, adrift into space, but… but…" Malik swallowed. "Could I have some water?"

Bakura picked up the plastic cup and headed off to the toilet without saying a word. Once he had returned with a cup of water, Malik drank half of it and continued.

"He came back. Or it wasn't really 'he', not the same one I'd lured away – I don't know if that one exists still, or if the shuttle is empty by now. But there came a new one, that night, and… I had luck then. Managed to lock him into the closet. I've no clue how he got out. When you came," his eyes shifted toward Kaiba, "I'd just been talking with him. Trying to reason. But… he's mad. Stark mad. You can't reason with him…"

He sipped the water again. For a moment no one said anything.

"Fine." Kaiba stood up from the edge of the bed where he'd been sitting. "We need to catch him and lock him somewhere. There's one thing though… do locks keep them out? Or rather, keep them in, in this case?"

Bakura nodded. "It's only when they first appear – then locks matter nothing and they come right to you. But they can't walk through walls or anything. So yes, I think that is what we must do for now, before we come up with a way to get rid of them. Permanently."

There was something strange in Bakura's voice that made Kaiba to glance toward him, but the white haired man's expression was as unreadable as his tone. He turned back to Malik.

"Do you have any idea where we might find him?"

Malik shook his head weakly. "Not really. He… might have gone to the labs, maybe, but… I'm not sure."

"We'd better go to search for him then." Kaiba gave Malik an estimating look. "I guess you're not coming."

Malik shook his head again. After a brief conference Kaiba and Bakura set off, locking the door behind them. They headed first to Kaiba's room to get his pistol – even if it would not kill the intruder, it would slow him down. Bakura had smashed one of the chairs lying on the floor, and was carrying a thick chair leg on his shoulder. "Just in case," he had said at Kaiba's questioning look. Personally, Kaiba thought that he appeared a little bit too cheerful about it, but he didn't say anything.

As they came to Kaiba's room he headed toward his bed to get the gun, but before he reached it he stopped suddenly on his heels.

"What?" Bakura asked from the door.

He shook his head, staring at the nightstand in silence. He checked its drawer, ruffled a little his bed, and turned then to look at Bakura with a severe expression.

"It's gone."

"What?"

"My gun. I left it on the night table, and it's not there anymore."

"Are you sure?"

" _Yes_." The word came out an angry snap.

Bakura was quiet for a moment. "Well. This might pose a problem," he said then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heh. They seem to have wooden chairs on this space station. I realized this only now... and am too lazy to do anything about it. Wooden chairs it is!


	4. Chapter 4

They walked down the empty corridors in silence. Kaiba could not help thinking that this scene was taken straight from a horror movie: two people stuck in a building together with a crazy murderer, wandering alone in the clinic, white corridors, listening carefully to the smallest sounds…

If this were a movie, at least one of them would be certain to die.

 _Good thing, then, that this isn't a movie_ , he thought and glanced at the quiet man who walked beside him. Not for the first time he wondered just what was going on under that white mop of hair, and just quite sane this companion of his actually was. Now, _this_ thought gave the movie plot a twist to a totally new direction, and with an annoyed frown he pushed it out of his mind.

They had come up with something of a plan: they had locked all the doors through the main computer, which would force their quarry to remain in the same small area where he happened to be, without being able to wander at large on the station. Meanwhile, they would search everywhere, one area at a time, and… well. What they would do once they'd find him remained to be seen.

"Do you really think this is the wisest approach?" Kaiba said as he punched in a code to open a door to yet another quiet corridor. "We could wait until we get help from Earth, without having to hunt him down by ourselves." _By ourselves_ and _without weapons_ , he added quietly in his mind.

"It would take time, and I'm not sure we have that luxury. We're counting on having him locked away from us – who knows if that really will work. We don't know where he is, or what he can do – if he finds the code to open the doors we're in trouble. I don't really want to spend any more time in a small restricted area with a madman running free than I absolutely have to. Besides…" he shot a wild grin at Kaiba, "Don't you like hunting?"

Kaiba sighed and pondered again on the burning question of how to define sanity.

"Why do you insist on starting at the labs?" he asked after a while. "Do you think we'll find him there?"

Bakura shrugged. "It's as good a place to start as any other. Besides, I want to see that everything is in order there."

Kaiba's eyebrows rose a little. "Is there anything specific you're worried about?"

Bakura just shrugged again, and soon they reached the laboratory doors.

Everything seemed to be fine. The white tables were spotless, the closets neatly organized, and at least to Kaiba's eyes nothing seemed to be touched. Bakura opened a locked door at the end of the laboratory, a door that should have led to some kind of a storeroom. Instead Kaiba could see the corner of a bed, and a table.

Someone was sitting by the table. White hair, pale skin… eyes of the same brown as Bakura's turned to look at them in surprise, widening a little when noticing Kaiba behind Bakura's back.

Carefully keeping his expression blank Kaiba looked at Bakura. "So, who's this? Or are you too suffering of a split personality?"

"No. He's my brother – my twin, to be exact."

"Let me guess, he's dead too?"

"Wrong again. Or at least if he has died, no one's bothered to inform me. We haven't been in touch for, I don't know, for many years."

"Why?" Kaiba looked at him curiously, but got no answer.

The younger version of Bakura stood up, smiled at him hesitantly and bowed a little. "Good evening, sir. My name is Ryou Bakura."

Kaiba turned his frown toward him, and the boy's smile faltered.

"Has anything happened?" Bakura asked, and Ryou glanced at him with a surprised look.

"No, nothing… why?"

"Never mind," Bakura stated grumpily. He nodded at Kaiba. "Let's go then."

"What is going on?" Ryou asked, confusion in his voice, but Bakura had already turned his back to him and was shoving Kaiba out of the room. Kaiba glanced at the confused boy with many questions in his mind, but he decided to leave them unvoiced for now. Instead he let himself to be guided out of the room and watched Bakura lock the door behind them.

"All in all, this is beginning to look quite suspicious," he stated when the white-haired man turned back to him.

Bakura frowned. "What do you mean?"

"All these people I've seen here so far have clearly been clones of people you have access to: you, Yami, my brother. Apparently Ishtar too, for I guess this person we're searching for will look just like him."

Bakura snorted. "You're still thinking we're cloning people here? Honestly, you have much more vivid imagination than people give you credit for."

Kaiba looked at him with indignation. "Don't you know who designs the Duel Monsters? There's nothing wrong with my imagination."

"I've noticed," Bakura stated dryly, and they fell silent for a moment.

"Then what are you doing?" Kaiba asked finally. "Why haven't you reported these things? Why do you keep that boy, your brother or whatever, locked in the lab?"

"What do you think? For research. I don't want to report anything until I've got at least something scientifically plausible to say about this."

"Scientifically plausible…" Kaiba snorted. "I'm waiting with deep interest, I tell you."

Bakura sighed. "Mainly, what I want to find out is whether these… people are actually people, or if they are just figments of our imagination." Kaiba gave him an inquiring look, and he went on, "What I mean is that if they are born from our minds, they shouldn't know anything we don't know, but… if they are more than that…"

He stopped in mid-sentence, and Kaiba nodded slowly. "You mean, are their memories simply our memories of them, or do they have memories of their own, the memories of those people they are supposed to be? I don't quite understand how that could be. How could some clone – for clones of some kind these must be – that has been made here and now know what my brother knew when he was alive, things he never told even me? It is hard enough to believe that this creature would be made of my memories, but of Mokuba's… that's impossible."

"Much of this is impossible…" Bakura muttered darkly.

Kaiba had nothing to say to that, so he remained silent. Bakura started rummaging around in the cupboards and closets, dug out a wide assortment of different bottles and tubes, and made a quick 'cocktail' out of them. Kaiba nodded approvingly as he watched Bakura pour the liquid into small glass bottles.

"You'd better be careful with those," he said, and Bakura looked up at him, grinning widely.

"Here's one for you too," he said and threw one bottle to Kaiba whose reflexes were luckily quite good.

"You _are_ bloody crazy," he muttered as he gingerly held the bottle, trying to force his startled heart to calm down.

"Shall we go then?" Bakura said cheerfully, ignoring him, pocketed the other two bottles and picked up the chair leg again. "We've got a mad astral split personality clone to catch." He marched out of the laboratory, and shaking his head Kaiba followed him, still trying to figure out whether he wanted to put the rather explosive bottle in his pocket or carry it in his hands.

So they went on with the hunt. They moved from one secluded area to another, slowly, cautiously, all the time expecting bullets to fly at them from some dark corner – well, at least Kaiba kept the fact that their quarry had a gun clear in his mind. He wasn't so sure of his companion, though, but he had to admit that even if Bakura seemed to take the situation a little too lightly at times, at least he made a very good stalker and didn't take any unnecessary risks.

"This is taking a long while," he muttered to Bakura after they had checked the umpteenth room. He glanced at his wrist watch – they had been at it for over three hours by now. He went quickly through the floor plan in his mind. "We don't have too many places left."

"So we have to come across him soon," Bakura muttered, starting to sound a little annoyed. "He has to be here somewhere."

Kaiba stopped suddenly on his heels. "Unless…"

"Unless what?"

Kaiba watched thoughtfully the walls around them. "What kind of ventilation system does this place have?"

Bakura cursed so vividly that even Kaiba learned some new words. "Yes?" he said calmly. "What was that?"

Bakura took a deep breath. "I've no bloody clue, I'm a scientist, not an engineer. But I guess it could be possible, technically… I'd imagine all parts of it should be accessible for reparations… _I've no clue_!"

Kaiba sighed. "Let's find a computer. There must be some info on this, and I don't want to continue any further until we know for sure."

"We're pretty close to our rooms," Bakura grunted. "We could as well go to check how Malik is faring."

Two more locked doors opened manually – Kaiba was beginning to get quite tired of this – and they were back in the corridor they had started from. On the way they had gravely noted a ventilation hole on the ceiling, covered by a grating, but big enough for a grown-up man.

Malik's door came into view; it stood open. Bakura cursed again and started running. "Déjà-vu," Kaiba muttered, and ran after him.

This time the room was empty, and Bakura's curses were turning quite expressive once again. Kaiba stepped in after him and closed the door behind him. "Make sure there's no one here," he said to Bakura and wasting no time turned on Malik's computer. As the computer hummed on he shot an estimating look around. "Does it look like there's been a fight, or do you think he's left on his own?"

"Hard to say," Bakura said and kicked a fallen paper basket. They hadn't exactly cleaned up after the previous fight. After checking that the rooms were empty he peeked over Kaiba's shoulder and saw he had already found all the files about the station's construction.

"It's not too bad," Kaiba muttered. "There are some ways to get from one area to another, but it could have been worse." He printed out a floor plan, studied it a moment and then picked up a red pen and crossed out some areas.

"These are secure and we have already checked them. Here," he drew a line from one part to another, "and here are connections that possibly could be used."

"Do you think…" Bakura started to say but fell quiet in mid-sentence.

"What?" Kaiba asked, with deepening annoyance as Bakura hushed him down.

"There's someone in the corridor…" Bakura grasped his chair leg and slid to the door while Kaiba stood slowly up and positioned himself on the other side of the doorway. Now he too heard the muffled steps from the corridor.

The moment the door opened and a shadow appeared in the doorway they both jumped at it, Kaiba grasping the hands and Bakura raising the leg to hit.

Their victim gave a startled yelp, stumbled, and fell down on the floor dragging Kaiba as well down into one bundle. Bakura threw the chair leg away and grasped a handful of white hair.

"You!" he yelled, shaking the white mop of hair he'd grasped. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Please don't pull my hair like that, it hurts," his brother's look-alike muttered miserably.

"How did you get here?" Kaiba asked, scrambling back to his feet. "All the doors are locked."

"Yes, the doors..." Ryou muttered, rubbing his head. "I used the ventilation duct."

Bakura cursed. "If an idiot like him can do that…" he muttered, but paused then. "Wait a minute. Just how did you get out of the room into which you were locked? The vent-hole in it is hardly big enough, and I can't quite believe you'd have been able to break the door."

"No," Ryou admitted. "It's just... in fact, Yuugi came for me."

"Who?" Kaiba asked.

"The ghost from Mutou's past, the one that drove him crazy," Bakura muttered and Ryou shivered.

"It wasn't his fault, really..." he started to say, but Bakura cut him off.

"So you're saying he's still wandering around here?"

"Not really." Ryou's voice was quiet and sad. "He went away, he said we won't meet again. I think it's about his time, he was already fading..."

There was a moment's silence. "Why?" Kaiba asked then. "Why did you come here? You could have stayed in your safe, locked room and not get involved with… whatever it is that's going on here." Ryou just shrugged, uncomfortably, gazing down, and Kaiba gave an exasperated sigh. "Never mind, then. We need a new plan. Would you, by any chance, have any suggestions?"

Bakura snorted. "Him?"

"Why not? He is, in the end, one of them."

"It doesn't mean I'd know... anything," Ryou blurted out, clearly disturbed by Kaiba's tone. "I... I just..."

"Yes?" Kaiba prompted when he fell silent, and he sighed.

"I think this... this person you're looking for... wants to get away from here. There's nothing here that would interest him. That's what Yuugi said, anyway, and it makes sense from what he told me."

"This Yuugi again," Kaiba muttered. "Can we really trust him?"

"I do, anyway," Ryou said and now his gaze was level. "He told me about this… visitor of Ishtar-san's. He's quite psychotic, apparently."

"And why would Yuugi know anything about him?"

Silence followed Kaiba's question, and he stared at the white-haired boy with narrow eyes. Just when he was about to repeat the question, Ryou gave a small sigh and shook his head as if to banish some questions of his own.

"Long ago, back when Ishtar-san was suffering of his split personality syndrome, Yami already knew him. They had been friends since they were kids, and of course Yami did his best to help him. He's the one who knew most of what was going on back then, after Ishtar-san himself. And… this Yuugi, he is… or was… no one else but Yami himself, when he was young."

"What?" uttered Kaiba at the same time as Bakura exclaimed "How?"

Ryou shrugged. "I don't know how these things work. And I don't know exactly what happened back then… some things went wrong, and I guess… Yami changed, turned into someone he didn't used to be, and… maybe he just couldn't stomach seeing himself as he once was… I don't know. Yuugi means 'game', doesn't it… I think there's some kind of a hint in that name he gave his younger self, but I've no clue what it's all about."

He fell silent for a moment and continued then, sadly, "And now it's too late to ask…"

"So…" Kaiba was still trying to gather his thoughts. He remembered the boy who had appeared in his doorway back when he had watched Yami's video message. Who else could have hair like that… And the voice he'd heard on the background on the video… it did remind that of Yami's didn't it? Just younger. He'd have to watch that video again.

"So. All this is very interesting but doesn't really tell us anything new. We already know that we're dealing with someone dangerous – and armed, better not to forget that. You said he'd want to get away from here? We already checked the port and there was no one there – though I guess it's included to those areas he can have reached since we were there, via the ventilation system."

Ryou nodded. "Yuugi was quite positive that he'd be there. He's someone who enjoys pain and hurting others, and in the end there are but a few people for him to play with here. He'd surely want to go back to Earth."

"Play with, huh?" Bakura muttered. "We'll see about that. But does he think he'll survive when he's away from Solaris' influence? I haven't had the chance to fully research this, but I think that Solaris' radiation has an important role in… simply put, keeping your bodies together."

"I don't know," Ryou admitted.

"Whatever's the truth about that doesn't really matter," Kaiba said thoughtfully. "As long as he believes he can make it, he'll try. In other words, he's most likely trying to steal my shuttle right now as we speak here."

"I don't think he'll leave from here as long as someone's alive here," Ryou stated. "Even this place is okay as long as there's a chance to… have some fun."

Bakura snorted. "Fine. He should be at the port then, right? Let's go have some fun, then."


	5. Chapter 5

The port doors slid soundlessly open. Kaiba eyed the round room spreading in front of them through slit eyes. In the center of the room was a round control desk with high display screens that were all dark. Altogether five corridors left from all sides of the room heading to different directions; at the end of the second corridor to the left was his shuttle, still properly docked. He gave a small sigh of relief. At least they weren't too late.

"You took your time," a voice rang suddenly in the room, echoing metallically from the barren walls. "I was getting bored."

Kaiba's eyes darted feverishly all around the room, but Bakura was first to spot the owner of the voice, a huddled figure sitting on a desk on the other side of the room, half hidden by the control desk monitors.

"Sorry," he said walking further into the room. "We'd have come faster if we had known you were waiting."

Kaiba hastened onward as well, not wanting be left behind, and as Ryou who had been hovering nervously at the doorway as well stepped in, the doors slid close behind them.

"Where's Ishtar?" Kaiba asked sharply. The figure straightened its back and spread its arms, and a wide, crazy grin spread across an oddly familiar face.

"Right here."

"The other one," Kaiba muttered. Sure enough, this was an exact copy of the Ishtar he knew, but he had never seen anyone who was as clearly crazy as this man. Quite uncomfortably he noted the revolver this "person" was holding in another hand. "What have you done to him?"

This other Ishtar gave a sigh and shook his head in mock disappointment. "The other one? One could imagine there's something wrong with me, the way people tend to prefer him. But don't worry, he's fine. He seemed to be a bit stressed out, so he's taking a nap in the shuttle."

"In the shuttle?" Kaiba's eyes snapped up from the gun. "Are you planning to take him with you?"

"Of course." The grin widened even more, revealing white, sharp teeth. "I will need a vessel once I get there, won't I?"

"A vessel?" Kaiba glanced at Ryou, who was hiding behind Bakura's back. "What does he mean?"

"No clue," Ryou whispered.

"Buuut..." the other Ishtar jumped down from the desk he'd been sitting on and walked to the central control desk. Bakura and Kaiba moved slowly after him, keeping their distance, so that the control desk would not end up between them. "Why don't we play a little game before I take my leave? Look what came after me quite on its own, and was kind enough even to bring me this gun…" He reached down and grasped what seemed to be just bundle of clothes lying by the control desk. Kaiba's heart jumped to his throat when he realized what it really was.

 _Easy now,_ he told him himself. _It's not Mokuba, just something that looks like him..._

Holding the unconscious boy up with one hand the madman raised up the revolver with the other, setting its cylinder to spin with his finger. "I just love this kind of guns," he muttered. "I couldn't believe my luck when I saw this. You can play one of my favorite games with a revolver like this." He placed the gun's muzzle against the boy's head. "Russian roulette."

He was grinning again, and Kaiba was getting so very sick of that grin. _It's not Mokuba_ , he told himself once more and took a deep, steadying breath. _It's just a clone that won't even die of gun shots, no need to get worked up about this._

"Then again..." the madman went on conversationally, as if hearing his thoughts, "it's not like I could cause any permanent damage here, as you well know, so this is hardly any big deal. Shall we try it once?" And he pulled the trigger.

"No!" Kaiba took half a step forward before he could catch himself. Annoyed at himself he stopped and shook his head. _Believe it already, it's not Mokuba!_

The gun just clicked, as the cartridge was empty. "Well, well, so we had a winner here." The mad eyes stared right at Kaiba, and he had a feeling that the ever-lasting, annoying grin was aimed at him. "But why so edgy? Didn't you yourself shoot this poor boy just the other day?"

"Don't listen to him, he's just playing mind games," Bakura muttered, and Kaiba snorted.

"As if I wouldn't know that..."

Whether or not their topic of conversation heard them, he didn't show it in any way. "But the game would be much more fun if all the players were awake, right..." he muttered, and shook the boy violently. "Time to wake up, kiddo! Your niisama's here to save you!"

Kaiba's fists clenched as Mokuba – no, the Mokuba look-alike grunted and twitched. "I'm here just to stop you," he corrected, "what happens to a clone or whatever you people are doesn't interest me. Besides, as you pointed out, you can hardly kill him."

"Hmm? Are you so sure of that?" The cylinder went spinning once more. "Why don't we play another round, then."

Kaiba shot a look at Bakura, hoping they'd have some way to come up with a plan. Their eyes met for a moment and he nodded ever so slightly before turning his attention back to the maniac in front of them. He took a slow step forward, then another, hoping that Bakura would understand to stay in the background. If he would be able to keep this madman's attention fixed on himself, maybe Bakura would have a chance to jump on him at some point. There was the gun, but as it obviously wasn't fully loaded... well, he didn't like taking chances like this, but if they were lucky it could be empty this time too.

"I do like games," he said just to say something, to stall, "but I have quite high requirements on who I agree to play with... and I'm afraid you don't qualify." By now the boy had completely woken up only to find a gun pointed at his head, and the wide eyes staring at Kaiba aroused old, very deep-rooted feelings in him. _Not Mokuba_ , he reminded himself once more, and stubbornly avoided looking at the boy. "Besides, this must be one of the most pointless games I've heard about. I already told you I'm not interested in the fate of a clone."

"If you say so..." Once again a finger tightened on the trigger, and this time a shot rang out. The small body gave a jerk and fell on the ground. Kaiba froze on his tracks and stared at the red puddle that started forming under the boy's head with a sick feeling in his stomach.

"Why so pale? I thought you weren't supposed to care about him," came a voice from somewhere, but the words were just meaningless noise that barely registered in his mind. A similar scene was playing in front of his eyes – a small body lying slumped on the ground, a pool of blood spreading around it... someone screamed somewhere, but he couldn't tear his eyes away...

_I couldn't protect him..._

He remembered the look, wide eyed, terrified. _I failed him, again..._

Someone laughed. "Priceless! If you'd just see the look on your face. Oh, you don't care, why would you..."

He looked up and saw the grin he had already come to hate. Suddenly anger burst free inside of him, pure rage he'd somehow managed to keep suppressed this long, ever since Mokuba's real death, and with a wordless scream he sprang onward. The grin disappeared and was for a moment replaced by a look of surprise; then another shot echoed in the room and a sharp pain hit his right shoulder, knocking him off his feet.

Something flew across the air and fell at this maniac's feet. There was a crack of a breaking bottle, and suddenly flames burst out. Belatedly, hazed by the pain and fading anger, Kaiba realized that Bakura had thrown another of the bottles he'd prepared and made a jump at their enemy. Another of the madman's trouser legs had caught fire, and Bakura was currently trying to wrench the gun from him.

 _Should... get up and help_ , Kaiba thought dizzily, but before he could find his legs again Ishtar's double managed to break free from Bakura's grip and aimed the gun toward the white-haired head. Bakura evaded, dodging just in time into the cover of the control desk. Another leg still on fire the double ran after him, but then Kaiba witnessed the most surprising scene of his life. Ryou appeared from somewhere behind the maniac's back, the chair leg Bakura had dropped raised high, and with a loud thump he brought it down on the madman's head.

Kaiba scrambled on his feet, pushing his hand against the throbbing wound on his shoulder, and staggered to where Ishtar's doppelganger was lying. Behind the desk, Bakura was crouching on the ground, frozen in astonishment. Ryou lowered slowly the chair leg and shrugged uncomfortably.

"What? Did you forget about me once again?" He glanced down at the unconscious double. "People always do..."

Bakura got finally over his surprise and jumped into action.

"Better to secure this fellow as long as we have a chance," he muttered and tied the maniac's hands with his belt. "How bad is it?" he asked glancing at Kaiba.

"Oh..." Kaiba looked at his hand that he was still pushing against his shoulder and saw it being colored red. "It's not... that bad, I think..." A quiet sob from the ground caught his attention and his eyes wandered over to the form of Mokuba. The boy was moving, slowly trying to sit up, and Kaiba walked over to him and crouched down beside him.

"Are you... okay?" he asked quietly.

"Yeh...yeah, I..." Mokuba looked up and his eyes widened in horror. "Niisama, you're hurt! You..." Suddenly tears burst out of his eyes. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I messed up again... I just always get into trouble and put you in danger too, and I... I'd never want you to get hurt..."

Unable to say anything, Kaiba took the sobbing boy in his arms and just held him there.

...

The next morning Kaiba woke up in his bed from a medicine induced sleep that left him hazy and still tired. Bakura had proved to be a rather tolerable doctor, although Kaiba had decided not to ask where he had learned to take such a good care of bullet wounds. In the end, he had been quite lucky – the bullet has passed clean through without hitting any bones. Even so, now that the painkillers were fading off, sharp pain shot through his shoulder when he raised his head to look around.

The previous day was a bit foggy in his mind. He remembered they had locked the doppelganger into the safest room they could think of, found Ishtar knocked out in the shuttle, and... as for the Mokuba who wasn't Mokuba… The boy was sitting huddled up in the chair by his bed, apparently fast asleep. He remembered how he had once before woken up in this room to find the boy sitting on that same chair, how he had panicked and… he swallowed and lay down his again for a moment before struggling to sit up. He looked at the kid closely, moved carefully away some of the black hair which felt much too familiar – there was no sign of a bullet wound in the boy's head at all.

 _He's not real_ , he thought with a tight feeling in his chest, _whatever he is, he's_ not real _..._

The boy woke up at his touch and yawned. "Morning, niisa… I mean…" the boy's voice trailed off and he looked hesitatingly at Kaiba who just shook his head, too tired to try to understand these strange happenings right now.

He moved to sit on the bed's edge, feeling dizzy. "Help me up," he muttered to the boy, who was instantly ready at his side.

"Are you sure? Maybe you shouldn't get up yet…"

"I need to go to the toilet," he grunted and the boy fell silent. He spent a long while in the small toilet, splashing cold water on his face and trying to clear his thoughts. It was in vain, though; for the first time in his life he was completely at a loss. In the end he gave up and opened the toilet door, reluctant to see what was waiting on the other side.

Just as he had guessed, the boy was sitting on the floor by the door, waiting like a loyal dog… No, he corrected himself, waiting like Mokuba would wait. There didn't seem to be any strength left in his legs, and so he slid down too, leaning against the toilet door, and sat on the floor beside the boy.

The boy looked at him curiously. They sat a long while there, staring at each other, until the boy finally voiced the question that was burning in Kaiba's mind as well: "What now?"

He shook his head and closed his eyes. "I don't know. I guess… I should go back to Earth as soon as possible, to see a proper doctor. As for you…"

His voice trailed off and as he did not continue, the boy finally asked, "Can I come with you?"

Kaiba couldn't answer immediately. "Would you want to?"

"I… I don't even know if I could, really. And…" The boy looked down and avoided Kaiba's eyes. "Would it be wise?"

Kaiba snorted. "We're both replying to questions with questions, aren't we? Honestly, I've no clue. I just…" He closed his eyes and hung his head down. _I just wish this wouldn't have to be happening in the first place. I wish that Mokuba… the real Mokuba… would be waiting for me there, back at home…_

"But he's not," he muttered aloud. "If I just had… had…" Suddenly he felt like choking.

"How did it happen?" The sudden question startled him, and he looked up at the boy who was staring at him seriously.

"What?"

"I... don't remember. I remember everything else, but... not that day... how did it happen?"

Kaiba didn't really have to ask what "it" referred to. "A traffic accident," he finally breathed. "Drunk driver. In the middle of the day, too... imagine that. Right outside of Kaiba Crop... that fool came speeding down, and..." He swallowed. "It's... it's so stupid, isn't it? After everything we'd gone through, all the setbacks and misfortunes we had beaten, for you to die in such an idiotic accident..." His eyes were burning and there was something so big in his throat he could barely breathe. "I promised I'd take care of you, but... I failed... then, and here again…"

He was suddenly closer to crying than he'd ever been in his life, and it took all of his willpower to keep the tears in check. Then a small form pressed against him, arms winded carefully around him. "Don't be an idiot, niisama," the boy whispered. "I don't really see how you could stop a traffic accident from happening..."

He said nothing, unable to speak. The tears broke finally free and rolled quietly down as he sat there hugging the boy and wishing with all his heart that this child were real. After a while Mokuba raised his head.

"You could stay here, you know," he suggested. Kaiba started shaking his head, but the boy went on, more eagerly, "We can go down to Solaris. It's perfectly possible to live there - anything is possible there, you could have whatever you wanted..."

"Maybe... but would it be real?"

The quiet tone of his question silenced the boy for a moment. "Would that matter?" Mokuba finally asked. "I know you could be happy there, we could make it perfect, we... we..." he shook his head in turn. "I'm sorry, niisama," he whispered. "I'm being stupid, aren't I? As if you could be happy, living in an illusion..."

"And are you an illusion too?"

The boy was quiet a long while. "Perhaps," he finally said. "But... there are no answers here, only choices. And you've chosen already, haven't you?"

Something in those words reminded Kaiba of Yami, hadn't he said something similar on that video… but yes. He knew he'd never be able to choose an illusion over reality, no matter how hard reality was. The look on the boy's face was heart-wrenchingly sad and it made Kaiba want to hug him again, tell him he'd never leave him, but instead he looked away and wiped away all the traces of tears on his face. "Well. Help me up. We can't spend the whole day sitting here. "I must get ready for going home."

Home.

The word rang empty in his ears. As empty as the long, quiet corridors and dusty rooms that were waiting for him – suddenly he found himself dreading returning there.

"I'll get by," he muttered without realizing he was speaking aloud as he carefully rose up from the floor. "Somehow."

"I know you will," the boy standing next to him said. "I hope you will."

He looked at the boy again, and for the first time, staring at his eyes, he thought that he saw something else, something that was not Mokuba, something that he couldn't comprehend, but the moment passed and he again faced his brother who looked exactly the same as that day when he'd for the last time bounced out of his office room.

He looked down again, feeling weak. "Actually, I think I'll lie down for a moment. Why don't you go to tell Bakura and Malik that I'm planning to leave as soon as it's possible…" He wanted to say something more, something conclusive, to explain it all, or possibly to apologize – to the boy or himself, he didn't know. He was still struggling to find the words, though, when the boy suddenly touched his hand. Neither of them said anything, just watched each other for a long while, until the boy gave a small, sad smile, let go of his hand and walked out of the room, without a word. Kaiba looked after him wondering if they'd ever see each other again. A part of him wanted to call the boy back, but instead he walked to the bed and lay gingerly down.

...

He did not see the boy again. A few hours later – somehow, he had managed to doze off again – Bakura came to wake him up. They had a quick, quiet meal together with Malik, who seemed quite absent and kept on glancing nervously at the door as if expecting someone to appear in the doorway. No one mentioned the events of the past few days, and Kaiba chose not to ask them about their respective "visitors". In the end, he wasn't very eager to talk about his brother, either.

After dinner Bakura went to fetch Kaiba's baggage, and the two saw him off at the port. The goodbyes were as quiet as the dinner, but just as Kaiba was about to take his leave, Bakura stopped him and shoved an envelope at him. Kaiba looked down at the white thing in his hand, and shot then a curious look at Bakura.

The white-haired man shrugged. "You've got your resources – I'm sure you can track down my brother. So, if you would... could you send this to him once you've found him."

Kaiba stared at him for a moment, slid then the envelope into his suitcase. "Sure."

They exchanged nods, and then the airlock's doors went _bang_ behind Kaiba's back again, and he started his long journey back home.

...

Much later, in a grand mansion in one of the greatest cities on earth, a lonely figure stood behind a locked door, one hand hesitating on the doorknob. Then, slowly, the hand moved, and the door opened, revealing a messy room where toys and schoolbooks lay all around, covered with a thick layer of dust. Slowly Kaiba stepped in and closed the door behind his back, taking in every tiny detail, every little memory attached to the most insignificant things. He walked into the room and picked up an origami dragon, finally giving himself permission to grieve.


End file.
